Rainbow

Very important content warnings:

Spoiler

abuse (derogatory language), death threats

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Grandma let us in as usual, not letting Lottie’s presence skew her routine. When compared to Mom and Lottie, she was relatively thin, and despite not even being sixty yet, she’d had her grey hair for as long as I could remember, yet, despite that, I could still absolutely buy her having been a knight, and she still didn’t let her apparent age get to her in the ways she moved.

I wasn’t that surprised when, without many formalities, she’d invited Mom and Lottie to talk in private, while leaving me to wait alone in the living room – this wasn’t my business, after all, and she did have a tendency to get rather particular.

Not that I was complaining, it gave me some time to think, given all that I learned on the ride there.

First of all, I realized that, when given the time to think it over, I did totally out demon Mom the day prior, even if not in the way Lottie and knight Mom thought. In other words, I was even more of an unforgivable bastard than I thought – there was being a bad person, and then there was being a bigot, and I appeared, despite my best attempts, to be both. What could I even do at that point? I felt like what I’d done, the full extent of it, wasn’t even something I could apologize for, because it was too bad to ever be forgiven – it would be an insult to the one I hurt to ask for forgiveness I could never earn, after all.

The second thing was more concerning, namely, the fact that knight Mom and Lottie were literally actively getting advice from someone for whom the end justified any means literally at that very moment. It felt like I was placed in the very precarious position of needing to handle a lot of very fragile variables in an attempt at deescalation, when my qualifications were the fact that I’d failed at an easier problem of the same type so bad that I couldn’t even comprehend the extent of it without having someone explain it to me.

I was literally constantly realizing that my judgement was even worse than I realized, and my decision making abilities were completely compromised.

And the worst part was that I knew for the fact that as soon as grandma released Mom and Lottie and the two of us exchanged mandatory canned phrases, we would get back in the car, and the people who should never even begin to trust me would ask me for my opinions yet again, and I’d need to once again decide in the heat of the moment just what amount of lies was appropriate, what amount of lies was justifiable, and then I’d be stuck wallowing in the feeling of having made yet another wrong choice.

I was not keeping a track of time at all, so I didn’t know how long the three of them actually spent talking and how much of the time was simply lost to me being stuck in my own head, but regardless, it was sooner than I expected that the tactical knight meeting was over.

“I know you’re not going to listen to me, but you are being too naive, daughter,” grandma said.

Mom exited the room relatively quickly, with the power in her steps, and Lottie followed behind in awkward, rushed steps.

“I am done here. You’re always so insistent on making something good into a failure, and I’m so done with that attitude. You need to accept that I don’t do things the way you do, mother!” Mom said in a raised, yet calm voice.

“Not yet, please,” grandma pleaded.

That shocked Mom enough to stop and turn around.

Grandma did not ask for things this way, at least not often enough for me to remember any time it happened.

Seeing that everybody stopped in their tracks, grandma continued, “I just want a couple minutes to talk to my grandchild in private, if that’s okay.”

Even more shocked at the tone of the request, Mom deferred the decision to me.

“O-okay, sure,” I said.

It might have been stupid of me to take a risk like that, but at the same time, Lottie and Mom were right there, and I was in desperate need of more information if I were to make anything resembling correct decisions in the future.

And so, I followed her into her reading room, closing the door behind myself, before standing there, awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

“Please, do sit down,” she said, gesturing in the direction of a comfy reading chair.

I did as she asked, however, as I turned back towards her to sit in the chair, I caught a tiny moment of glow in her eyes. Magic.

She didn’t seem too bothered about being caught, despite clearly having noticed, and instead she sat in the dining chair opposite from me.

“So it is just how I feared. For what it counts, I really hoped it would not come to this.”

“W-what do you mean?” I asked.

“You know exactly what I mean – after all, after the events of yesterday, there’s no way you don’t know the story, both sides of it. The way I see it, you do deserve the truth at least, before the inevitable comes to pass.”

Of course she didn’t want to talk about anything normal, like my recent birthday. Though I supposed it was to my advantage, I’d much rather get relevant information out of this conversation.

…

Wait, both sides?

“Y-you know about M- Dad? Is that why you hate he- him?”

How did Mom never realize, yet grandma, who has barely even seen demon Mom, knew?

She simply chuckled.

“You barely can even bring yourself to call her that… Do not worry, child, I know the truth, both about your parents and about you, you are free to speak honestly,” she confessed.

Suddenly, even without having learned anything of use, I knew too much to even begin to process.

“B-but, them getting together happened after the…” I trailed off, not sure what to call my parents’ final confrontation.

“I have never approved of your mother’s methods, but I’ve accepted that they are effective. This incarnation of Demon Queen is neutralized, and even if she wasn’t, she is being kept under the watch of a Magical Knight. It was always you I worried about, even the potential of you.”

“B-because I couldn’t be a Magical Knight?”

“No, I’ve always known that your mother’s social skills were more than enough to find a candidate suitable, and unlike those before me, I never cared about the duty staying in family – I had your mother because it was easier finding a man for one night than it was scouting for an appropriate candidate and falling in their good graces, even if motherhood has proven more of a challenge than I anticipated. Your friend might not be the brightest, but she’s got more potential as Magical Knight than either your mother or me,” she explained.

“Then why?”

“Because you’re not like your mother, either of them, you aren’t like your friend, and you aren’t like me, and god only knows I tried to make you to be such. No, you aren’t like anybody else, you are a mix of two diametrically opposed ideals, both of which have near limitless potential, as I’m sure you realized yesterday, and that makes you incredibly dangerous.”

I felt like I wasn’t even fully there anymore, but even through the thick fog of confusion, I could feel the spike of dread, the absolute fear.

“But I’m not–”

“Not right now, no, you’re admittedly pathetically weak, but that only makes you more dangerous – no one will suspect you, no one will test you, or keep you in check, and that makes you a ticking bomb that nobody will be able to prevent in time. No one will stop you when you cause a lot of innocent people to suffer.”

“But I wouldn’t–” I paused, thinking of all the terrible things I’d done lately. “...would I?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, child – you have not done anything wrong, and you will not. Even if you were compatible with the mantle, I knew very early into your life you wouldn’t be able to perform the duty. Your mother might dislike violence, but she is still willing to perform it for the greater good. You, on the other hand, never held such a potential,” she explained.

How could she not see it? How terrible a person I was… She was supposed to be cold and calculating, seeing past the pretence of social norms…

“Then… what?”

“Nothing. You are a mistake, but not of your own making. You have already infected people with your demonic powers without ever meaning to, did you not? It will only get worse with time. There’s only one possible solution to this problem, the inevitable, the reason I decided you had the right to hear the truth – you will die soon. I do not know how or when, but I will make sure it happens, for the greater good.”

I felt cold. I felt numb. I had no idea what my body was doing in response to that revelation, but unlike my mind, it at least kept up with it.

“So… what now?” There was no feeling, not even an intonation in my voice, it barely even sounded like a question.

“You are free to leave, fate will find you regardless of where you are. You deserved the truth, and you got it. I advise you to make your peace while you still can.”

After that, she simply got up, and exited the room.

Almost on autopilot, I followed her, and then I followed Mom and Lottie back to the car. Words were said, but I did not process them. At the same time, I wasn’t stuck in my head, there were no thoughts.

It wasn’t until I was nudged by Lottie that I realized we were moving, not even on grandma’s street anymore.

“Hey, what’s gotten to you, what did she tell you?” Lottie asked.

Could I even say anything? Was I someone who deserved to be protected?

Something, perhaps some shred of self-preservation instinct, or maybe just basic empathy, protested – it wouldn’t just be me who’d be dying, it’d be my parents’ child. I might not have deserved to be Lottie’s best friend, but she still considered me one, so her best friend would die too, alongside me. I couldn’t possibly hurt those most precious to me, when all I needed was to say a couple words, right?

At the same time, I still couldn’t hurt them more. I still couldn’t tell secrets that weren’t mine. I still couldn’t lie, no matter how easily it came.

And I definitely wasn’t in the state for many words.

“She told me that I was a mistake,” I mumbled sadly. I could at least say that much.

“What.”

In a flash of golden light, Mom had transformed in rage, squeezing the driving wheel way too much.

She then slammed the brakes and violently turned to the side to get the car off road.

“That fucking bitch! I kept her in my life for so many years, despite her coldness, despite her being so cruel and hateful towards the love of my life, and that’s how she repays me!?” Mom growled.

I got so shaken by her out of character rage that I forgot for a moment about the death threats I faced.

Of course, I was still too frozen to help calm her down, but luckily, Lottie’s got it covered.

By the time I was anything resembling functional again, we were once again driving, and once again somewhere else than I expected. Almost home, in fact.

“Hey, you’re back with us?” Lottie asked.

How did she notice?

“Kinda,” I admitted.

Lottie simply nodded.

“We’ve decided that we’re not going to be listening to my mother, no matter how valuable her knowledge may be. We cannot trust her not to manipulate us. We never could, but I was under the mistaken impression that her intentions, at least, were pure,” Mom announced.

I nodded.

I could not really say anything to that.

We spent the rest of getting to our apartment in silence, and Lottie of course joined us.

We sat down once again in the living room, with me and Lottie next to each other. She actually sat closer to me than usual, clearly trying to comfort me, but it just made me feel gross.

Before we could even start any conversation, Mom’s phone started ringing, and so she pulled it out.

“It’s… mother,” Mom announced.

Rainbow

My stories had antagonists before, some of them could even be called villains, but I believe the grandma in this story to be my first proper villain, and honestly, I tried my best to do her well. See, I didn't want her to just be a mustache twirling villain, she's understandable, her motivations make sense, you can see where she's coming from as a person, but at the same time... she is not a nice person, and she's not too sympathetic, she's... just like this, a cold, calculating person who never saw it fit to change herself.

Goodness, it feels disgusting doing the copy-pasta under this chapter, but alas, a girl's gotta eat steadily build up her income so that eventually she can hopefully afford to be independent from her parents.

If you want to read this story to its ending now, you can find it in these places:
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I hope you enjoyed this chapter and have a great day! ❤️?????